Domestic Melodrama

Domestic Melodrama

Domestic melodrama is a fictional work emphasizing emotionally unexpected changes and tragic occurrences, traditionally presented in a dramatic manner. The plot usually concerns victimized or suffering leading characters, and a mixture of difficulties among lovers, family, friends, or the community. The story typically incorporates both familiar and romantic themes. Narratives concentrating on a single family unit are described as Domestic Melodramas and portray relations between parents, offspring, siblings, and in-laws, relating how the family endures or dissolves through such emotions as love, jealousy, rivalry, and hatred.

Melodrama was the most pervasive dramatic genre of the 19th century. Melodramas were typically overflowing with emotion, set in mysterious locations, and peopled with typical characters: heartless villains, heroines in distress, and strong heroes who faced almost insurmountable odds in rescuing those heroines. They were relatable stories, stories that people could see their own lives unfolding into. Family was always a major theme of melodrama, since in the 19th century; it was who people dealt with the most.

Racial, social, and economic tensions in American society found a way into popular dramas. In Harriet Jacobs "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", domestic melodrama occurs when Linda Brent struggles to protect herself from her master and is torn between her desire to run away from him and her need to protect her children. Dr. Flint refuses to sell Linda to Mr. Sands; Dr. Flint banishes Linda to his plantation; Aunt Martha tries to talk her out of running away; Linda discovers that her children will soon be broken in as field hands. Linda runs away from the plantation and goes into hiding, leaving her previous life behind and taking the first step away from slavery.

Dr. Flint throws Linda's children and brother in jail; Linda tricks Dr. Flint into thinking she is living in the North; Mr. Sands promises to free their children but then breaks that promise.

In this story, the examples of domestic melodrama are the corrupting power of slavery; and domesticity as paradise and prison... The melodrama of the story is Linda trying desperately to get back to her children, which is the moral of almost all of domestic melodramas.

In "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" Douglass struggles to free himself, mentally and physically, from slavery. At the age of ten or eleven, Douglass is sent to live in Baltimore with Hugh and Sophia Auld. Douglass overhears a conversation between them and comes to understand that whites maintain power over black slaves by keeping them uneducated. Douglass resolves to educate himself and escape from slavery. However, he is later taken from the Aulds and placed with Edward Covey, a slave "breaker," for a year. Under Covey's brutal treatment, Douglass loses his desire to learn and escape. Douglass decides to fight back against Covey's brutal beatings. The shocked Covey does not whip Douglass ever again.

Douglass is hired to William Freeland, a different and much kinder master. Douglass starts educating his fellow slaves and planning his escape. His plan to escape is then discovered. He is put in jail and then sent back to Baltimore with the Aulds to learn a trade. Douglass becomes a caulker and is eventually allowed to hire out his own time. Douglass saves money and escapes to New York City, where he marries. The themes in this story are ignorance as a tool of slavery and knowledge as the path to freedom... The victimization of female slaves is described in great detail in the story, further encompassing the theme of domestic melodrama.

In Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" the single most important theme is the difference between men and women. The two sexes are distinguished by the roles they play in society, their physicality, their methods of communication and--vital to the plot of the play-- their powers of observation. Trifles suggests that men tend to be aggressive, brash, rough, analytical and self-centered; while, in contrast, women are more circumspect, deliberative,